Now most Laptops are getting pretty decent now a days, with reasonable purposes and specifications to boot, one could wonder if this one is just right for you, and if you are using and existing one is it a worthy next step upgrade to fulfil your next laptop for your work and maybe some fun with streaming, reading and spreadsheet crunching ?
We will look at the ASUS Vivobook 15X (K3504V), one of the Vivobook Laptop series lineup that focuses on work and some entertainment in a no nonsense way, not a basic laptop as it incorporated some of the modern specifications within it.
Who is this for ?
This is meant for those who are looking for the essential ‘want’ a laptop for general usage, with efficiency over mobility, good for those who wanted to work long hours with it, or just wanna read the latest social media news over the internet, not too bulky, yet quite easy to move it around, great for the business students also or those not requiring heavily relied graphical tasks.
Design
It is a standard looking one at a glance, much as a follow up from the previous Vivobook series mixed with some modern aesthetics that one would appreciate the Cool Silver color, metal looking but yet durable with MIL-STD certification putting it as a tough cookie that able to withstand some very light drops to it, but does not necessary looks bulky to be strong.
Weighted at 1.6KG only it is definitely not the lightest of them but it is looking sleek at just 17.9mm. Despite that security is still retained with a fingerprint scanner that is located at the touchpad which supports Windows Hello while the touchpad is fully compliant with Windows Precision Drivers. And they keyboard feels pretty good with key press distance that stands in between comfort typing and pretty much if you are playing some easy games on it, yes you can and the response rate is appreciated with good actuation to it. Webcam is business as usual with a manual privacy shutter to prevent accidental activation over applications while the two way microphone is going its job of reducing background noise, which is an essential if you are a constant conferencing user there.
Most of the ports provided are definitely an essentials, especially the TYPE C USB port which supports charging your laptop and extending more ports should you need, even towards more displays as the port protocol supports DisplayPort over USB C with peripherals.
Display & Audio
Armed with a 15.6 inch FHD non OLED, but IPS display, the ASUS Vivobook 15X (K3504V) provides a pleasant focused front view that is placed at 84.3% screen to body ratio, and widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio that is perfect for your movie streaming, splitting 2 windowed app or just wanna crunch some work, the screen is meant for that. With just a maximum of 250nits brightness, this is definitely works well for most indoors and some outdoor area, I reckon it is best to avoid highly bright areas, but still it still does the job, considering the price that is being offered with low blue light hardware certification from SGS.
Now to the audio, it is not the best we ever tested, but not the worst either, again when we are evaluating this laptop, we still be able to enjoy the clarity level that it has to offer, with some details that still can be projected out from the pair of speakers located below the laptop, and overall most can still be satisfied with the loudness that does not produce hiss or statics, therefore it is a pass to us based on the overall materials used. However should you wanted to tune your audio, DiRAC app is there for you.
Performance, Benchmarks, Experience
The ASUS Vivobook 15X (K3504V) puts in some modest upgrades in the hardware side. First off the processor is powered by the Intel Core i5-1335U Processor with 10 cores and 12 threads, 8GB of 3200Mhz single channel RAM, with 512GB of PCIe 4.0 internal storage, it is indeed can perform most tasks without issues including lightweight gaming, streaming videos via the web up to 4K, productivity and a few Chrome tabs is a breeze for this laptop.
However should you wanted to upgrade, fortunately there is one empty slot for RAM and the occupied NVME slot can be swapped or upgraded, hence we do recommend to upgrade and fill in the RAM slot, turning the laptop to run in dual channel memory mode, which will dramatically improved in performance in general, file swapping, and graphical intensive tasks overall.
Now towards some downside, the included Wi-Fi combo card is from MediaTek, while the brand is not the issue, it’s the 1X1 mode which limits you to only 150MBPS when operating in 2.4Ghz channel while in 5Ghz channel only, you can get a decent 1.2GBPS link, which is still modern in terms of transfer speed, but just set the preferred connection to 5Ghz first in Windows when necessary to get the best speeds.
I am leaving the benchmarks scores here but if you wanted to ask for an experience with it, I am more than satisfied basically mainly due to the fact this laptop will just last you at least for 6 hours without requiring to recharge and modestly able to do generally whatever most user does, a little of gaming wont hurt much as long you know what you are playing, and yes, movies is a good to go, at least 5 hours straight in 1080P resolution with half brightness and a decently cooled room.
Verdict & Conclusion
In short, the ASUS Vivobook 15X (K3504V) is a laptop that serves a modern, modest in looks, capable in general performance and can be a mix leisure to use, equipped with work efficient Core i5 13th generation processor, it is still capable of certain hardware upgradability that should last the users quite long forward, especially those who started to work or study, needing a new fresh laptop, this could be for you and when you are ready for another upgrade, just pass it along to someone that needs it. ASUS is now selling the laptop at a price of RM3199 and 2 years of warranty.